Product Description With the same brilliance that characterized his classicI, Claudius, Robert Graves continues the tumultuous life of the Roman who became emperor in spite of himself and his handicaps. Claudius the God reveals the splendor, vitality and decadence of the Roman Empire through the eyes of the wry and bemused Claudius who reigns as emperor for thirteen years. The crippled Claudius describes himself as the fool of the royal family, whom none of his ambitious and blood-thirsty relatives considered worth the trouble of killing. Once on the throne, however, he finds himself at last at the center of the political maelstrom. Review This book, with or without its predecessor, is amusing and illuminating to a high degree.(New York Times) Mr. Graves has written a novel that is at once interesting as history imaginatively rekindled and as a parable that has its modern applications. (Current History) Graves made Roman history funny and familiar. (Guardian) --. About the Author ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985) was an English poet, translator, and novelist, one of the leading English men of letters in the twentieth century. He fought in World War I and won international acclaim in 1929 with the publication of his memoir of the First World War, Good-bye to All That. After the war, he was granted a classical scholarship at Oxford and subsequently went to Egypt as the first professor of English at the University of Cairo. He is most noted for his series of novels about the Roman emperor Claudius and his works on mythology, such as The White Goddess.